Steamboat Springs

Today started off slightly different than most days. After a 6:00 wake up, which was miserable because I was constantly up throughout the night because the gym we slept in was freezing, we had our normal breakfast, and got ready to get on the bikes. But instead of getting straight on the road we had to wait around for about 20 minutes for a special guest, Mr. Bruce Rogers. Bruce Rogers is the reason we are all here. If it wasn’t for him, Journey of Hope wouldn’t be a thing, and without his company, KRG Capital, we would be looking for a different title sponsor.

Along with his son, Bruce rode with us today from Craig to Steamboat Springs, which was a beautiful ride. I rode with David Iles from the University of Iowa and Saurabh Mehta from Miami of Ohio. It was only about 45 miles but was a lot of fun. Instead of all of the ugly brown and red mountains in the desert we had been seeing for the past two weeks, today we saw lots of trees and rivers, which was awesome. After only about 3 hours we arrived at the ski town and met with everyone at the local high school. We weren’t there long enough to put our bikes inside before some of us rode back in town. We went over to the local bike shop, and then went to a Mexican restaurant, which was delicious. Once everyone was done eating we rode our bikes back to lodging and showered up and relaxed.

Today practically felt like a day off of the bikes for the team. Being done so early gave us plenty of time to explore before having any sponsored events. About 11 of us went into town and got smoothies and checked out some shops, and also saw a very wild sight. Last night at our friendship visit we were told there is a man walking a goat a cross the country and that there was a possibility we would see him on our way to Steamboat Springs. Well coincidentally enough we see the goat sitting on the grass on Main Street. I thought riding a bike across the country was crazy, but this man is walking a goat from one coast to the other.  

After a nice nap it was time for our friendship visit. We were meeting with the organization Horizons of Steamboat Springs. The friendship visit was at one of the client’s house, and we enjoyed pizza, lots of singing and dancing and interestingly enough wrestling. The guys that did Journey of Hope last year told us that one of the clients, Bruce, loved to wrestle and that he would probably call someone out if he were there again this year. Well after we took our group picture, there was Bruce, calling out Josh Preslar. Josh is one of my chapter brothers from Knoxville and he is not a small guy. He probably had 3 feet and 200 pounds on Bruce, but he did not seem threatened.

Bruce celebrating a victory of Josh in a great wrestling match! 

Tomorrow we have a tough day, so everyone has the rest of the night to do what they wish. We have another century day, and from what I’ve heard it is probably the second hardest ride of our trip. I look forward to getting over the mountain passes, because from what I hear, the down hills are some of the best of the summer!